DEAR PERSON GOING TO A JOB YOU DON’T LOVE ON MONDAY.

I don’t remember if I was crying, but I probably wasn’t.

I wasn’t sad. I was angry.

Sitting there in that dark car in that dark parking lot, I was mad about what I had to do next. After fighting Atlanta traffic for another soul crushing hour, I was about to go to my job.

I felt invisible. I’d rage inside about all things I was going to do some day. I’d metaphorically shake my hands about all the potential I had. I was going to write a book! I was going to do big things. I was going to …nothing.

That’s what was happening, a whole bunch of nothing.

It felt like I was wearing roller skates on an ice skating rink. I was flapping around furiously, expending tons of energy, but not actually getting anywhere.

When I was 9, I promised myself I’d write a book someday. At 34, I’d spent 25 years lying. No book. No plan. No hope.

I had a full time job. I had a long commute. I had a beautiful wife and two young kids under the age of 5. Toddlers are amazing, but they are also a crisis. They never stop moving, like raptors constantly testing the boundaries of their containment for weak spots. Your life is upside down when you have young kids. I also had freelance clients. I had bills and mortgages and all the things that come along with being an adult.

I didn’t have time, space or the resources for a big dream. I just didn’t.

There wasn’t a eureka moment. Maybe other people have them. Maybe other people get lightning bolts or wise old strangers named Cornelius with long beards and corn cob pipes they’ve whittled. They come across your life, drop off some truth bomb and then recede to the shadows never to be seen again.

That’s not exactly how it happened for me.

There’s not one moment where everything changed, one bit of progress that made everything different.

It was nothing more than tiny, tiny bits of hustle.

That’s all I had.

I started with goals so small they were practically microscopic.

Bit by bit, goal by goal, I started to chip away at the marble of my life to see what was really inside.

It wasn’t easy, but I figured out a few things. I figured out a few tricks along the way. I found some potholes, mostly by falling in them, and learned to avoid others.

The point is I tried. I got out of the car and got into my goals. I got messy and I worked.

Is that you? Are you in a car somewhere? Or a cubicle somewhere or a car rider pick up line right now reading this?

What are the things you want to do someday that you could start today?